A Bittersweet Moment

The past 2 days have been wonderful. Hanging out with Dr. Chris and the other members of the January trip has really been a blessing to my spirit. The past week was a little stressful knowing that I had this deadline coming, but also with added projects at work. But after I completed the video late Monday night and got it out to DVD, everything immediately got better. Well, almost. I still had to make it through work yesterday, which was one of the most frantic days I can remember. But as soon as Dr. Chris came in to dinner yesterday, I felt an enormous sense of joy and relief. For the past month I have been working steadily on this video in anticipation of his arrival. I wanted everything to be perfect with the video even though I knew he'd be thrilled to have it in any form. So when he showed up, all the stress melted away. It was no longer a deadline that I was trying to meet, it became a chance to share my gift for Faith Alive with a man who has inspired me to take on this journey of video craziness. And then to have him compliment me, and thank me and tell Anna how appreciative he was for my work absolutely blew me away. I have so much respect and admiration for Dr. Chris, that those words of gratitude will probably sustain me for a long time to come. I must confess to that I felt very unworthy of his praise. Here is a man who has devoted so much of his life to helping the less fortunate, and yet he's thanking me for 2 months of work in my spare time? I guess I really can't explain the joy that brought me.

Tonight was when Dr. Chris spoke to our church. The turnout was very good, in my opinion. The sanctuary was probably at about 80% capacity. When he was here in November, the crowd wasn't even large enough to justify using the sanctuary, so I was very pleased. My video was shown just before his talk and it seemed to complement his presentation very well. I hope that it is a tool that he can use in the future, to help put faces to the stories that he shares.

So the bittersweet part of all of this is the fact that it's all over. My video is pretty much ready for mass distribution, Dr. Chris will be leaving tomorrow, and the Heart of the Father in Africa campaign will be over in the next couple of weeks. So what do I do now? I'm hoping that this video will open some doors for me to work for other non-profits in the future, but in the meantime I guess I'll just look for ways to pitch in as I can. I don't want this to be my one big contribution. I want to make a habit of it. Actually, I want to make a life of it. As hectic as the past weeks or months have been, they have also produced the most gratifying works I've ever made.

By the way, the video is encoding right now and I'll post it as soon as it's done. May God be with you all and please offer an extra prayer for Dr. Chris and the entire Faith Alive family tonight.